Review and Herald, Vol. 46, No. 8. (8/26/1875)

Review and Herald

Aug 26, 1875

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 26, 1875

CONSTANTINE.—NO. 5.

By Joseph Harvey Waggoner

BY ELD. J. H. WAGGONER.

It appears, not from a single statement of a single historian, but from the oft-repeated statements of many historians, that Eusebius was so carried away by the supposed benefit that Constantine was conferring on Christianity and the personal favors bestowed on himself by the emperor, and that he so far lost sight of the purity of the gospel and the strictness of Christian principles, as to greatly injure his own reputation as an historian.

With Constantine’s crude or confused notions of Christianity, with his commingling of pagan and Christian rites, during most of his public career, if not to the very last year of his life, with his policy of making everything subserve his own interests, we cannot be surprised that he both practiced and advised deception when it favored his plans. Theodoret thus speaks of his address to the bishops of the Council of Nice:—

“He said that the crimes of priests ought not to be made known to the multitude, lest they become an occasion of offense or of sin. He said also that if he had detected a bishop in the very act of committing adultery he would have thrown his imperial robe over the unlawful deed, lest any should witness the scene and be thereby injured.”—Theodoret, p. 46.

When we see that the influence of this advice has not been lost upon the church even unto this day, when we consider how many in this age of light plead against faithfully exposing the sins of professed ministers of Christ lest the gospel faith should thereby receive injury, we are not surprised that the words of the emperor, who was regarded almost as an oracle by the bishops, should have been received as wise and prudent, and acted upon. Eusebius was as likely as any to follow in the wake of his imperial master. And we are not left in this matter to a supposition, as the following shows:—

“In describing the sufferings of the Christians during the last persecution, Eusebius admits that it does not agree with our plan to relate their dissensions and wickedness before the persecution, on which account we have determined to relate nothing more concerning these than may serve to justify the divine judgment. We have, therefore, not been induced to make mention either of those who were tempted in the persecution, or of those who made utter shipwreck of their salvation, and were sunk of their own accord in the depths of the storm, but shall only add those things to our general history which may in the first place be profitable to ourselves, and afterward to posterity! And in another passage he asserts that the events most suitable to a history of martyrs are those which redound to their honor.”—Waddington’s Eccl. Hist., p. 90.

There are few writers who seem to have given more easy credence to the statements of Eusebius than Guericke, yet he is constrained to speak of him as follows:—

“It is to be regretted that this oftentimes wavering and weak, yet great, emperor—who, under the impulse of passion, was guilty even of the murder of his son Crispus and of his own wife Fausta—could not have had the plain warnings and evangelical instructions of a bolder and less dazzled spiritual guide than was the Bishop Eusebius.”—Page 243.

Neander says:

“We should remark that Eusebius was strongly inclined to turn everything to the advantage of his hero.”—Vol. ii, p. 6.

Waddington, however, does not need the aid of other historians to justify the statement we first quoted. In the following he gives, and that most forcibly, further reasons why he cannot rely fully on the words of Eusebius:—

“But that delinquency of Eusebius which we have just mentioned is confined to the suppression of truth—it does not proceed to the direct assertion of falsehood—we shall now notice a still more serious suspicion to which he has rendered himself liable. The thirty-first chapter of the twelfth book of his Evangelical Preparation bears for its title this scandalous proposition: ‘How it may be lawful and fitting to use falsehood as a medicine, for the advantage of those who require such a method’! We have already deplored with sorrow and indignation the fatal moment when fraud and falsehood were first admitted into the service of religion. Philosophy, in the open array of her avowed hostility, was not so dangerous as when she lent to her undiscerning adversaries her own poisoned weapons and placed them in unskillful hands as implements of self-destruction. It was disgraceful to the less enlightened fathers of the second and third centuries that even in the midst of trial and tribulation they borrowed a momentary succor from the profession of falsehood; but the same expedient was still more shameful to Eusebius, who flourished during the prosperity of the church, whose age and more extensive learning left him no excuse in ignorance or inexperience, and whose great name and unquestionable piety gave sanction and authority to all his opinions. There can be no doubt, then, that the publication of that detestable principle in any one of his writings, however modified and limited by his explanation, must, to a certain extent, disturb our confidence in the rest—the mind which does not profess to be constantly guided by truth possesses no claim to our implicit submission.”—Church History, p. 91.

Mosheim more than casts a doubt upon the veracity of Eusebius or his reliability, at the least, in the following language:—

“These very edicts, which evince his good will for the Christians and his reverence for Christ, at the same time prove that all the things stated by Eusebius could not be true; and they show Constantine was not, at that time, a Christian, except in the lowest sense. For while he believed Christ to be a god, he did not believe him to be the supreme God, who created all things; nor did he consider the Christian religion to be the only way of attaining salvation.”—Hist. Com., p. 467.

Keightley, speaking of the murder of Constantine’s son (for no other name can be given to the crime) thus presents the evidence against the “courtly bishop”:—

“When a biographer passes in silence over any important action of his hero, we may be certain that a minute and exact inquiry, and a sifting of all the circumstances, has convinced him that it is incapable of bearing exposure to the light, and that no ingenuity can avail to extenuate, much less excuse, it. On this principle we hold the profound silence of Eusebius on this mysterious transaction to be conclusive of the guilt of Constantine and the innocence of Crispus; and, at the same time, destructive of that prelate’s claim to truth and integrity as an historian.”—Hist. of Rome, p. 346.

No one can reasonably complain of the tenor of this language. No one can deny that it is fully justified by the circumstances. On the part of Eusebius there is more than the suppression of a well-known and important fact; he exalted the character of Constantine even as if the crushing fact did not exist. It must appear to every one that if he had considered that that action could be justified he would have noticed it with all the extenuating circumstances he could command. But, as Keightley well says, it was evidently beyond his power to justify or extenuate. Who, then, can justify the course of Eusebius in holding up Constantine as a man of pure life and pure motives in the face of such facts?

Nor was it left to later ages to discover this want of integrity in Eusebius. One born in his own century has left on record the following estimate of his reliability:—

“In writing the life of Constantine this author has very slightly treated of the Arian controversy, being evidently more intent on a highly wrought eulogium of the emperor than an accurate statement of facts.”—Socrates’ Eccl. History, p. 1.

Thus we think it is made plain beyond question that Constantine was not, in consideration of either his laws or his actions, worthy of the name of Christian. And that Eusebius, his favorite bishop and most servile flatterer, was so intent on exalting Constantine as a Christian emperor that he both suppressed and misrepresented facts to such an extent as to render his testimony unreliable in many respects.

The questions will naturally arise in many minds. Why is it that Eusebius is regarded so highly as an historian while the evidence is so abundant that he was so biased and blinded that he greatly perverted the facts of history? And why is it that Constantine, even in this day, is held up as a Christian, and extolled as a Christian emperor and the benefactor of the church, while historians are so well agreed that his religion was a mixture of Christianity and paganism, that his whole life was unworthy of a Christian, and even of a humane pagan, and that his influence over the church was evil and disastrous to her as regards piety and purity of both faith and life? The reader is requested to weigh these questions, and consider what reasonable solution may be offered to this apparent mystery. We have no hesitation in giving it as our opinion that partisan prejudice has had much to do with this perversion of history, and that men have, perhaps not always conscious of the motive or of the evil resulting, exalted unworthy means for the purpose of maintaining what they really considered worthy ends.

We come now to the consideration of Constantine’s famous Sunday edict. While many will, no doubt, be surprised at the evidences of history on this subject, all will be able to perceive the justness of the remark in the preceding paragraph.

In the year 321, March 7, Constantine issued the following:—

“Let all the judges and town people, and the occupation of all trades, rest on the venerable day of the sun; but let those who are situated in the country freely and at full liberty attend to the business of agriculture; because it often happens that no other day is so fit for sowing corn and planting vines; lest the critical moment being let slip, men should lose the commodities granted by Heaven.”

This is a matter of great historical interest, and the place which it has been made to occupy in theology makes it the most interesting event in the life of Constantine. History points with unmistakable directness to this decree as the first law for resting from labor on Sunday. And because of the position given to Sunday for a few centuries past, it is important to understand the real motives which actuated the emperor in giving this decree. From a careful observation of the subject, we are constrained to believe that the effort to make Constantine appear as a Christian emperor has been made in reference to this Sunday law, to give it the character of a Christian institution. It is indeed true that if Constantine had been an earnest or sincere Christian at the time of his issuing this decree it would not prove it to be a Christian institution. To prove that, we should require something back of his authority, as it cannot be disputed that an emperor in the fourth century, however sincere in his belief in Christianity, could not bring into existence a Christian institution. For such an institution we must have the direct evidence of Scripture.

First, then, we must notice the fact that this was the first public authority for Sunday keeping. Dr. Heylyn, of England, who wrote extensively on this question, said:—

“Tertullian tells us that they did devote the Sunday partly unto mirth and recreation, not to devotion altogether; when in a hundred years after Tertullian’s time there was no law or constitution to restrain men from laboring on this day in the Christian church.”—Hist. of the Sabbath, part 2, chap. viii, sect. 13.

Tertullian died A. D. 216; a hundred years brings us to A. D. 316, only five years before Constantine’s law. Thus does Heylyn point to that as the first law to restrain men from laboring on Sunday.

Alexander Campbell, speaking before a graduating class in Bethany College in 1848, said:—

“Was the first day set apart by public authority in the apostolic age? No. By whom was it set apart? and when? By Constantine, who lived about the beginning of the fourth century.”—Copied from Proclamation and Reformer, Cincinnati.

Morer wrote thus of the first day:—

“And being taken up and made a day for religious exercises, yet for three hundred years there was no law to bind them to it, and for want of such a law, the day was not wholly kept in abstaining from common business; nor did they any longer rest from their ordinary affairs (such was the necessity of those times) than during the divine service.”—Dialogues on the Lord’s Day, p. 233.

Here, again, three hundred years elapsed before there was any law for resting on Sunday. Although the churches were accustomed to hold divine service on that day, they were accustomed to do the same on the sixth day; on the one, in honor of the crucifixion; on the other, in honor of the resurrection. They did not, however, claim any scriptural authority for such customs, nor did they abstain from secular labor on either day.

Sir Wm. Domville, who closely and critically examined this subject, wrote as follows:—

“Centuries of the Christian era passed away before the Sunday was observed by the Christian church as a Sabbath. History does not furnish us with a single proof or indication that it was at any time so observed previous to the Sabbatical edict of Constantine in A. D. 321.”—Exam. of the Six Texts, p. 291.

J. W. Morton, formerly missionary of the Reformed Presbyterian church, in his address to the synod, said:—

“The first day of the week was not observed by any of the children of men as a Sabbath, for three hundred years after the birth of Christ. Do you ask for proof? I refer you to Theodore de Beza, who plainly says so. If you are not satisfied with the witness, will you have the goodness to prove the affirmative of the proposition?”—Vindication of True Sabbath, p. 34.

HYMN FOR THE SCRIPTURAL SABBATH.

By W. H. Black

“Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.”

FORGET the day of God? Ah, no! Each seventh day, we vow, till death, The world's dull vanities shall go, And prayer and praise employ our breath.

No day of moon or day of sun, No day that bears an idol's name, No day suggesting labor done, Shall rob it of its ancient fame.

No vain pretence of Christian change— No human custom—human laws— With us God's order shall derange, Or drive us from his holy cause.

All time is thine, immortal King! Who shall dispute thy righteous claim? Ours be it to obey, and sing Th' eternal honors of thy name.

W. H. BLACK, 1848.

I Venerate Old Age

I VENERATE old age; and I love not the person who can look without emotion upon the sunset of life, when the dusk of evening begins to gather over the watery eye, and the shadows of twilight grow broader and deeper upon the understanding.—Longfellow.

How to Detect Them!

By J. M. Avery

We read in Gal. 1 : 8: “Though we, or an angel from Heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.” By turning to 1 Cor. 15 : 1-4, we find this gospel plainly stated. Paul here says: “Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain; for I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.” Paul does not say that his body died, and his soul went immediately to paradise. If any come preaching this doctrine, shall we be deceived by them?

Again, we read in Rom. 16 : 17, 18, “Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them. For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple.” Webster defines gospel to be any system of religious truth or doctrine, hence Paul refers to the gospel, or system of truth, that they had been taught.

We read that the time is coming when men will not endure sound doctrine, but shall be turned unto fables. Said a minister, some time since, “There is something so repulsive in the doctrine of the sleep of dead that it cannot be true!” It seems that he could not endure the sound doctrine of life and immortality through Christ. In another instance, while preaching the funeral discourse of a child, he said, “For aught I know, the babe may now be perching on the top-most bough of the tree of life.” Notwithstanding all the caution of the apostle, it seems that the true gospel has been lost sight of. But we have great reason to thank God that he is leading a people into the true light; and if the people have the Spirit of God with them, how long will they reject the light when it is presented?

Again, those who have from childhood been taught to observe the fourth commandment, and the aged who have for a quarter of a century professed obedience to the law of God, after joining themselves to the class above mentioned feel secure in open rebellion against that law! What a deplorable condition is theirs! They suppose themselves without sin, and yet are in so great error! We believe that there are honest ones among them, and wonder not that God spake by the prophet, “Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins.” Isa. 58 : 1. It seems that a trumpet voice is needed to arouse such from their self-righteous condition, and convince them that they are transgressing the law, and, consequently, are condemned as sinners in the sight of God. But we will hold up the light before them, hoping and praying that they may heed it; and that they may not be, in the last day, of the disappointed ones, who suppose that they have in the name of the Lord cast out devils, and done many wonderful works.

In Testimony No. 9, p. 153, noisy exercises are spoken of disapprovingly, and it is said that the influence of such meetings is not beneficial, as the enjoyment comes from a wrong source. We also read, page 157, “Their fruits are such as to disgust unbelievers.” “They are boastful, and pray and talk in a self-righteous manner, exalting themselves, and virtually thanking God, like the Pharisee, that they are not as other men.” Here is the greatest deception that can affect the human mind, for persons to believe that they are right when they are wrong. They think they are doing a great work in their religious life. Finally, Jesus tears off their self-righteous covering, and vividly presents before them the true picture of themselves, in all their wrongs, and deformity of religious character. They are found wanting when it is forever too late to have their wants supplied.

As long as people believe and preach the first falsehood Satan told to man, “Thou shalt not surely die,” be not deceived by them. May the Lord give us wisdom, that by his word we may detect all deceivers. We will fear not to keep the commandments of God, and to speak of them before “kings.” If the third angel’s message brings out the light of truth just as the eye brings light to the body, can we expect that God will cause those to see who reject the message, any more than he would cause us to see the light of the sun if we persisted in closing our eyes? Before God sent the message, such persons might have enjoyed his Spirit. Should we not beware that we say or do nothing to make them feel any more secure in their self-righteousness? The Lord pity and save the honest, and let us do all we can to bring them to a knowledge of the truth as it is in Christ Jesus. Let us be more deeply in earnest, in the work of the Lord. Let us remember the exhortation of Peter: “Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own stedfastness.”

J. M. AVERY.

A Word of Advice to Those who Are Subject to Fits.

By I. Edgar Jones

ALTHOUGH I am not an M. D., I have at hand a few capital recipes for the prevention and cure of fits, and as I ask nothing for the same, you cannot, dear reader, reasonably complain of their price. We are all somewhat subject to such attacks. I have them occasionally myself, and I dare say that you are not wholly free from them, so I give these with the additional advice: “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.”

For a fit of rage, walk out into the meadows or into the woods, and tell freely and without fear your opinion of everybody and everything to the wind. You will hurt nobody’s feelings by doing this, neither will you show yourself to everybody as a foolish abuser of others. The exact center of the field is the best for this purpose. “The beginning of strife is as when one letteth out water; therefore leave off contention, before it be meddled with.”

For a fit of idleness, count carefully the ticks of the clock for two hours, and you will probably be glad to take off your coat and try to do something. “The soul of the sluggard desireth, and hath nothing; but the soul of the diligent shall be made fat.”

For a fit of wastefulness or dissipation, go to the prison or the poor-house and you will be at once convinced that he who sows the wind reaps the whirlwind, and that he who makes his bed of brambles and briers must lie upon them afterward. “There is a way which seemeth right to a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.”

For a fit of haughtiness and pride, walk into the graveyard and study the inscriptions upon the tomb-stones; they will show what a man is at his best. Read also the second chapter of Ecclesiastes, and hear one who has proved these things say that greatness and happiness are not always hand in hand.

For a fit of grumbling, look upon the unfortunates who are lame and blind, visit those who are ill, or insane, or suffering the pangs of poverty, and blush with shame for complaining of your comparatively light troubles and annoyances. “If thou hast done foolishly in lifting up thyself, or if thou hast thought evil lay thy hand upon thy mouth.”

For a fit of envy and covetousness, go to the watering-places, and behold the great number of wealthy invalids that are there, some in carriages, and some dragging themselves wearily along, wrapped in innumerable folds of flannel, and suffering from every kind of disease. Consider the number who have been ruined by wealth and fame. Do not, like Israel, worship golden calves, but ask thyself earnestly, “What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?”

For a fit of depression and discontent, look at the blessings a kind Providence has provided. If many of these have not fallen to your share, walk into the fields some summer day and listen to the birds as they sing upon the branches songs of thankfulness, perhaps for their breakfast, without knowing where the dinner is to come from, and consider that you are of greater value in God’s sight than hundreds of these. They that dig like the birds for worms will doubtless find them, and all who work wisely will doubtless be rewarded. “The fear of the Lord tendeth to life; and he that hath it shall abide satisfied; he shall not be visited with evil.”

For a fit of boastfulness, consider how long it has taken the wisest and best of men to find out how little they know and how much there is to learn. Remember that these rarely display their wisdom without cause or boast of its possession. A good merchant does not put all his goods in the windows, but keeps the most of them inside, and produces them only when wanted. “He that hath knowledge spareth his words; and a man of understanding is of an excellent spirit.”

For a fit of inordinate ambition, study the history of famous men. Remember that fame and distinction are purchased by labor and perseverance, and that luck and chance have no place in the successful man’s vocabulary. They must fight who win, and those who reach the top must climb to get there. “The heart of the prudent getteth knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeketh knowledge.”

For all fits of doubt, discouragement, fear, etc., etc., recollect that Providence always helps those who help themselves. Put your trust in Providence by doing all you can to merit its care, and do not expect to fill your pockets with gold, or your head with wisdom while you are asleep. Remember that Providence does not pay a premium upon sloth and idleness, but does run an Industrial Bank, and honors all such drafts. “He that handleth a matter wisely shall find good; and whoso trusteth in the Lord, happy is he.”—I. EDGAR JONES, in Sabbath Recorder.

Micah 4.

By G. V. KILGORE

We are told that this is the portion of Scripture which proves positively the glorious millennium prior to the second advent of Christ. It states emphatically that “he [Christ] shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks.” In plain words it testifies that “nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig-tree; and none shall make them afraid;” and to confirm it beyond a doubt, the reason that we may expect peace is assigned; “for the mouth of the Lord of hosts hath spoken it.” These words are used by men professing to belong to the true Israel of God to prove the doctrine of the world’s conversion. This peace-and-safety cry is sounded aloud from the pulpits of the present day, and is echoed far and wide by many people.

If the above scripture was not surrounded with qualifying testimony, there would be some ground for such a theory. But the 4th verse of this liberal prediction—the 6th of the chapter—breathes a spirit which is not in harmony with that of the God of Heaven, who is “a jealous God” and who declares, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” This shows at once that somebody else besides the Lord is speaking. We look at the introduction of this prediction, verse 2, and learn who the real speakers are: “Many nations shall come and say.” Isaiah says: “Many people shall go and say.” Say what? The very same things that Micah declares many nations shall say in the “last days.” Does Isaiah say they will say these things in the last days? Yes; chap. 2: 2. And he declares in verse 6: “Therefore thou hast forsaken thy people, the house of Jacob, because they be replenished from the east, and are soothsayers like the Philistines.” The nations which Israel possessed hearkened unto diviners (Deut. 18: 14), but the Lord did not permit his people so to do. Diviners are the same as soothsayers. Josh. 13: 22. And here Isaiah says that many people in the last days will be like the Philistines, hearkening unto diviners. Therefore he cries out, chap. 3: 12, “As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them [i. e., they are easily led astray]. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths.”

Right here we hear Ezekiel blaming the prophets (teachers) for not making up the hedge for the house of Israel to stand in the battle in the day of the Lord. Eze. 13: 5. In verses 9, 10, the Lord says, “Mine hand shall be upon the prophets that see vanity, and that divine lies; they shall not be in the assembly of my people. . . . Because, even because they have seduced my people, saying, Peace; and there was no peace.”

The Philistines were a very proud people, Zech. 9: 6, hence Isaiah compares “many people” in the last days to them, and states that “the lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.” Isa. 2: 11. For he says they will cast their idols to the moles and to the bats, “to go into the clefts of the rocks, and into the tops of the ragged rocks, for fear of the Lord, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth.” This is to be the fate of those that hearken to diviners. Therefore, the prophet adds, “Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils.”

It is evident that they who say, “Nation shall not lift up a sword against nation,” &c., are not the people of God. Who, then, are the true Israel? What are they doing? and how do the “many nations” look upon them? Let the Lord answer by Micah: “In that day, saith the Lord, will I assemble her that halteth, and I will gather her that is driven out, and her that I have afflicted.” Chap. 4: 6, 7. For what? “And I will make her that halteth a remnant, and her that was cast far off a strong nation.” In what day? In that day when “many people” are predicting peace; that is, “in the last days!” While the majority are rushing along eager for gain, and listening alone to the teachings of men, a few will halt and hear what God says; they will obey Isaiah’s injunction, “Cease ye from man.” Of them, the Lord says, he will make a strong nation, and reign over them forever in Mount Zion. Praise him for his goodness! Verse 8: “And thou, O tower of the flock, the strong hold of the daughter of Zion, unto thee shall it come, even the first dominion; the kingdom shall come to the daughter of Jerusalem.” Yes; God will verify his promise to his Son, Ps. 2: 8; when the prediction contained in Dan. 7: 13, 14, is fulfilled. And afterward Christ will obey his Father’s instructions, Ps. 2: 9, and fulfill his own promise, by giving the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, to the people of the saints of the Most High.

But what people in the last days will the Lord call? The remnant. Joel 2: 32. Micah says they are “driven out,” “cast far off,” and “afflicted.” John from Patmos beholds them as they came up after “the earth helped the woman” (after the Reformation), keeping the commandments of God, and says that the dragon went to make war with them. No war, controversy, or division, can be raised about the commandments, except about the fourth, which enjoins the observance of the seventh day. Hence, it is evident that this is the precept that will cause the remnant trouble. The dragon urges the two-horned beast to make a law, causing “the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast,” which beast instituted and enforced first-day observance.

Verses 9 and 10 show that the remnant are to experience greater trials before deliverance than merely being driven out and cast off. These things are common now; for as soon as a person commences to keep all of God’s law, and believes that the spirit of prophecy belongs to the church in these days, he is driven out of fellowship, and cast off as non-Christian.

“Now why dost thou cry out aloud? is there no king in thee? is thy counselor perished? for pangs have taken thee as a woman in travail. Be in pain, and labor to bring forth, O daughter of Zion, like a woman in travail; for now shalt thou go forth out of the city, and thou shalt dwell in the field, and thou shalt go even to Babylon; there shalt thou be delivered; there the Lord shall redeem thee from the hand of thine enemies.” These words imply that there is a king, a counselor, in Zion, and that we should trust in him, and not complain when troubles thicken around us; that there are great trials yet in the future for the people of God; and that they will not always have the privilege of even pitching tents in cities in which to hold meetings. Luke 14: 16–24, gives an illustration of the call to the marriage supper of the Lamb. In this parable, the invitation is given at a certain time to those in the “streets and lanes of the city,” afterward it is extended to those in the “highways and hedges.” So Micah says, “Now shalt thou go forth out of the city, and thou shalt dwell in the field.” And more than this: “Thou shalt go even to Babylon; there shalt thou be delivered; there the Lord shall redeem thee from the hand of thine enemies.”

In Rev. 17, Babylon denotes that mother church which was drunken with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. In chapter 14: 8, herself and her daughters are represented by the same term, as being in a fallen condition. And here it is noticed that all nations have imbibed her corrupt doctrines. Immediately following this is a warning against the worship of the beast after which “all the world wondered,” and to which the two-horned beast of chapter 13 causes an image to be made, and whose worship it enforces under penalty of death. In this warning message are brought to view those who “keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.” They are the remnant with whom the dragon makes war. Rev. 12: 17.

Dan. 12: 1, says, “There shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time; and at that time thy people shall be delivered.” Christ says in Matt. 10 that those whom he sends forth shall be as sheep among wolves; that they shall be brought before kings, governors, and councils; “and ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake; but he that endureth to the end shall be saved.” Therefore, considering the testimonies of Christ, Daniel, and John, it seems evident that Micah’s reference to the remnant’s going even to Babylon, and there being delivered, implies that after they are prohibited from preaching even in the streets and lanes of the city, and it is found out by the rulers that they have not held their peace, but have been crying aloud in the highways and hedges, they will be arrested and brought before governors for promulgating such doctrines as they hold. That is the way the old dragon (pagan Rome) served the apostle Paul. The leopard beast (papacy) received his power and did the same kind of work. The two-horned beast is to follow suit. He is to exercise all the power of the first beast before him, and speak as the dragon spake. The rigid laws of the dragon imprisoned the apostles, yea, they beheaded them, and nailed Jesus to the cross! What may the remnant expect, with whom the dragon is to make war? But, thank God, deliverance is promised. And the deeper the bondage by the power of Satan, the greater the deliverance.

“Now also many nations are gathered against thee, that say, Let her be defiled, and let our eye look upon Zion.” This is the way the remnant, “whom the Lord shall call,” are to be looked upon, says Micah. The many nations feel sure that they are right, “but they know not the thoughts of the Lord, neither understand they his counsel; for he shall gather them as sheaves into the floor.” Verses 11, 12. He shall “bind them in bundles to burn them.” Matt. 13: 30.

Verse 13: “Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion; for I will make thine horn iron, and I will make thy hoofs brass; and thou shalt beat in pieces many people; and I will consecrate their gain unto the Lord, and their substance unto the Lord of the whole earth.” Oh! who wants to be among the “many people” who say that “nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more”? Who wants to be with the heathen and all the wicked when they are convinced of sin? For that will not be until the fulfillment of Enoch’s prophecy: “Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.” Then what becomes of them? Are they converted to holy living? They shall be “beat in pieces.” He shall “dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.” They shall become “like the chaff of the summer threshing-floors;” and the wind shall carry them away, that no place shall be found for them.

G. V. KILGORE.

Continue reading: Proceedings of the Fourteenth Annual Session of the S. D. Adventist General Conference